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The setting up of a reward fund to finance a whistleblower to come forward and help the grieving relatives of the MH370 passengers is a serious threat to Democratic principles, particularly within Obama’s government in the US and other western states.

As the FBI, Secret Service and CIA all try to persuade Edward Snowden to come home and stop spilling the truth about homeland spying (he won’t) the #RewardMH370 Twitter tag openly begs for a second whistleblower to come forward (he will).

This direct acceptance by ordinary citizens and voters that their leaders and the powerful elite they swing with are corrupt and dishonest is hugely damaging to the principles and ideas behind Democracy.

This has not happened since the industrialisation of the globe and the ushering in of Capitalism (with a big ‘c’) and Democracy (with a big ‘d’).

This is the citizen ignoring the words of the ruling elite.

Your favourite World News channel will be worth watching closely over the next few weeks as #RewardMH370 will be in turns rubbished, smeared, trivialised and finally forced by legal means to withdraw its open offer to hire a ‘law-breaker’. Big lawyers will be wheeled in to persuade #MH370 that what it is doing becomes against the law, the exact moment that it pays cash for stolen corporate secrets.

Citizens are permitted to ignore the words of their ruling elite but they are not allowed to find their own ‘work-arounds’ to the legal framework nor openly set up a competing system of government which bases itself on pure democracy and pure capitalism. To ask any man or women to tell us the truth is pure democracy. To pay that person for their services is pure capitalism.

We ordinary citizens still do not know what happened to flight MH370 but we share a growing belief that senior capitalists and politicians do. We are not being lied to so much as simply not being told the truth. These days, you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to be a conspiracy theorist.

The launching of this embryonic fighting fund in the last day is of huge political significance and resonates far beyond its apparent cause.

This fund launch does not make a city fund manager wealthy. Instead, it legitemises the Edward Snowdens in all societies as people of justice and vendors of truth. The whistleblower as ‘Robin Hood’ is finally arriving. While the whistleblowers of the last century were mostly beaten with stones in the town square and then jailed for crimes against the state, maybe the average citizen is now beginning to reflect upon their position in society and see where they fit in.

The authorities, aviation manufacturers and world politicians involved in the MH370 crisis never for one moment won the battle for the hearts and minds of the relatives of passengers. Now, all it will take is for one single person to come forward and break cover and tell the truth.

If the disappearance of MH370 was not a crisis, then what exactly was it? The stakes are huge.

With sincere and passionate respect for the relatives of those who flew on MH370, three questions still remain.

1) Why have Boeing (the manufacturer of the missing jetliner) still not made any public statement that was worth writing down on a cigarette packet?

2) Why have Malaysian Airlines (the owner of the missing jetliner) still not made any public statement that was worth worth writing down on a cigarette packet?

3)Why have all respected world news agencies still not made any public statement that was worth worth writing down on a cigarette packet?

Are we witnessing a ‘new dawn’ for public relations initiatives? The silence is both astonishing and inept. It is not acceptable for either Boeing nor MA to argue that they are doing much for the relatives behind the scenes. They are clearly not. Hotels are cheap as a shield against being sued into bankruptcy.

The “Holiday Inn Upgrade” offers stink of corporate lawyers being too scared to do the right thing and thrusting money in the place of honesty and integrity.

Boeing: You are pushing the cause of air-crash investigation back over sixty years through your reluctance to share files.

If you read their ‘About Us’ page, you will see that the company describes itself as ‘the world’s premier manufacturer of commercial jetliners for more than 40 years’.

Boeing also proudly explains that:

“…Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) provides end-to-end services for large-scale systems that enhance air-, land-, sea- and space-based platforms for global military, government and commercial customers. […] BDS is developing enhanced capabilities through network-enabled solutions, communications and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technologies. BDS supports the U.S. government as a system integrator on several programs of national significance, including NASA’s International Space Station and, the Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense program. BDS is also expanding into new markets and adjacencies, including unmanned systems, cyber security, energy management, and support and logistics….”

Judging by their own formidable description of their skills, it is less comforting to consider that so far, Boeing has effectively said nothing to the world’s press in connection to Flight MH730. Clearly, it (as a company) must have a considerable amount of data pertaining to this flight.

However, Boeing says that it is now acting as a ‘technical advisor’ to the American National Transportation Safety Board who have a team in Malaysia working with the Malaysian government. Investigators with expertise in air traffic control and radar are providing technical assistance to the Malaysian authorities who are working on locating the missing jetliner.

And the NTSB, who only investigate domestic air accidents, make it clear in their press release dated 12th March 2014:

“…The NTSB plans no further releases of information on the investigation…”

So there you have it. Since it is now an ‘advisor’ for the ‘official’ inquiry carried out by the NTSB, Boeing is now free from being questioned about any issues relating to its own product. Even though the NTSB doesn’t usually work outside the USA. The clue is in the title. They are ‘national’ and not ‘international’.

I’m sure that Malaysian Airlines are relieved to know that the manufacturer of their aircraft which has gone missing is sworn to NTSB secrecy and works closely with US Defense. The NTSB don’t actually have any business working out of their territory but the fact that they appear to have disconnected their phone just after Boeing knocked on their door seems…well…disturbing.

If I bake a pie and you got sick after eating it, would you feel better if I told you that I was closely involved with the local Police and neither they nor I were available to answer your questions?

This “say nothing” corporate approach to missing aircraft by manufacturers does have a precedent in the story of the aircraft manufacturer De Havilland.

10) Boeing may be releasing statements but they are not answering questions.

9) China has not revealed anything it knows about the flight because nobody has had the balls to ask it.

8) The US Navy has not divulged a single detail despite its huge presence in the area at the time of MH370’s loss.

7) The Malaysian government have not been asked why they look so damn scared and are clearly playing for time.

6) The South Vietnamese (see 8) have not mentioned anything except a bloke on an oil rig who might have seen something.

5) Malaysian Airlines has not really been asked anything at all.

4) US Military has not been pressured to reveal if it has more data, harvested from its sophisticated local Intel. (see 8)

3) China and Russia cannot deduce technological advances in US radar due to silence by US (see 8)

2) Innocent role of US as ‘helper’ means that China, Vietnam and Malaysia dare not put pressure on US for fear of revealing their own ignorance to the US. (see 8)

1) This diplomatic constipation means that nobody has had the honour nor integrity to tell the grieving relatives that there is absolutely no chance that there are any survivors and that the date of their kin’s death was 8th March 2014.

The loss of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 three days ago with 239 people on board is fast becoming a tragedy of ever greater significance as Malaysian official responses flounder in what appears to be a mixture of incompetence and inertia. Despite praise from one US Commander in the area for the Malaysian Forces ability to organise the search areas in detail, both the government and airline are failing under international scrutiny.

The United States, Chinese and Vietnam Navies are applying intensive resources to seeking answers and, combined with other neighbouring countries, have more than forty vessels traversing the estimated crash area. In contrast, very little is being done by the Malaysian authorities to engage either with the mourning relatives – of which there are a great many – or provide more information.

Relatives of the 38 Malaysian passengers who have been waiting in Kuala Lumpur are now being told simply to ‘expect the worst’ – hardly a constructive or compassionate response and days too late to be expressed. Likewise, in Beijing, grieving relatives of the 153 Chinese nationals on the flight are complaining about being unable to find information from officials.

Malaysian airport security did not check the passports belonging to passengers boarding the flight against the InterPol ‘Lost and Stolen’ computer directory. Both of these passports which were stolen in Thailand and subsequently used by two people to board the flight had been listed there for the last year.

If Malaysian authorities are not checking the movement of suspicious people who pass through their airport hubs, then what exactly are they checking? Until the flight’s black box can be recovered, the suspicion that these two unknown passengers were terrorists remains. But with no terrorist group having so far come forward to claim responsibility, this line of reasoning fades with each passing hour.

But even with what little we know so far, Flight MH370 has more similarities with some previous airliner crashes than are immediately apparent. With the disappearance of the flight being currently so distressing it is not helpful to speculate without reason but below is a very short list of similar tragedies:

August 1947: BSAA Flight CS59 – Avro Lancastrian

In 2014, global weather patterns are now known to be partly driven by the Jet Stream – a band of super-fast winds that modern jet airliners ‘ride’ to get to their destinations sooner or avoid when going in the opposing direction. Back in 1947, a passenger airliner climbed above the cloud-covered Mount Tupungato on its way to Chile from Argentina. It was never seen again. Conspiracy theories abounded, aided by the mysterious and repeated final Morse signal sent by its navigator – “STENDAC”. Fifty years later, the plane’s wreckage was found in the mountains. It had flown into a snowy peak, causing an avalanche to fall on top of it, covering all wreckage. Not realising that they were flying into the Jet Stream’s strong winds, the crew’s mathematical calculation that they had passed over the mountain did not take into account the fact that, in reality, they were barely moving forward in relation to the ground. Their unforeseeable and tragic demise was unraveled by modern computing and the understanding we now have of the Jet Stream. “STENDAC”? This word puzzle has never been solved but one theory is that the Morse code operator in the Lancastrian was suffering from hypoxia (oxygen starvation – the plane was not pressurised) and believed that he was confirming his DESCENT.

January 1949: BSAA – Avro Tudor MkIVB

The Bermuda Triangle was a bewildering mystery throughout the 1940’s and ’50’s when entire ships and even whole groups of fighter planes disappeared without trace. On a fine day and with an experienced crew and a well serviced plane, this flight from Bermuda to Kingston was effectively an unremarkable and routine flight. The only note of doubt was caused by ten minute blackouts of radio signals that day across the area of sea which was being flown over by the Avro Tudor. Even so, its pilot’s clear messages to gound control were noted and served as confirmation that all was well on board. The plane never arrived at Kingston. Extensive searches found no wreckage. In the 21st century, we now know that the area of sea called the Bermuda Triangle is the location for occasional ferocious and random volcanic eruptions on the sea bed. Gases rise as bubbles to the surface in millions of cubic litres from the under-sea volcanos. If you are a boat or ship on that part of the ocean, you will sink immediately because the water you were floating on is suddenly filled with air bubbles and becomes ‘non-buoyant’. If you are flying above the area in question, the hydrogen and oxygen of the air may be replaced by other gases, either starving your engines or creating massive turbulence. Landing in the sea will give you the same problems as a ship or boat and you will sink without trace.

July 1988: Iran Air Flight 655 – Airbus A300B2

290 Iranians (including 66 children) and 38 souls from other countries had just left Bandar Abbas on a half hour flight to Dubai, having originated at Tehran. The Airbus was transmitting “IFF” signals (International Friend or Foe) and was expected to be where it was and it was flying its agreed route. Eight minutes into its flight, the Commander of the United States guided missile destroyer ‘Vincennes’ (nicknamed ‘Robocop’ by his fellow US Naval officers for his apparent lust for seeking conflict) decided that this particular A300 Airbus was instead an Iranian F-14 Tomcat fighter, trying to attack him. He ordered the firing of two anti-aircraft missiles into it. The passenger jet disintegrated. Although its black box was never found, the Vincennes itself was loaded with all the data necessary to prove beyond doubt what had happened and the United States inquiry uncovered weak leadership, inexperienced crew and ignored warnings of the A300’s true identity to have conspired to create a ‘regrettable accident’. The United States denied guilt but payed millions of dollars in out of court settlements.

December 1988: Pan Am Flight 103 – Boeing 747-121

A few months later, on its way from Frankfurt to Detroit, American Pan Am flight 103 took on more passengers at London and departed for America. With its 259 occupants (189 American, the rest from other nations) settling in as they flew through the darkness above Scotland, a bomb in the luggage hold exploded and the airliner disintegrated. The inquiries and assertions of both British and United States investigators were widely doubted from the start. There were and still are deeply held beliefs of many relatives and political commentators that the tragedy was dishonestly blamed on one man – a Libyan Intelligence Officer put forward by Libyan Colonel Gaddafi as responsible. The man, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was arrested and jailed in Scotland. In 2003, Libya admitted responsibility but not guilt and settled multi-million dollar compensation claims to the relatives of those who died – in return for political and economic sanctions being lifted. Although this Boeing 747 flew in Pan Am’s colours, it in fact belonged to the United States Civil Reserve inventory of aircraft. One of the earliest Jumbos built, it had been completely overhauled and modified two years earlier to allow it to carry out diverse alternative roles such as freight carriage. The case has so many astonishing and unbelievable inconsistencies within it that a new inquiry is due to be set up in 2014.

June 2009: Air France Flight 447 – Airbus A330

228 souls passed on when this plane – an Airbus A330 – left just a few pieces of wreckage on the surface of the Atlantic when it crashed. The black box was not recovered until much later on but – almost immediately after the airliner ‘disappeared’ – Airbus confidently announced that blame lay with the crew: human error. How were Airbus so sure? Well, the A330 is the aviation equivelant of your friend who is always on their iPhone. Flight 447 sent a string of messages back to its manufacturers – Airbus – as it flew, alerting them to the fact that things were not going well on the flight.

The plane used ACARS – the Aircraft Communicating and Adressing System – to transmit data over the last three minutes before it crashed. Airbus certainly possessed that information three days after it had crashed.

Over the next 20 years, the Asia Pacific area is predicted to account for almost 50% of the world’s growth in air traffic. Both Airbus and Boeing are anticipating delivering nearly 13,000 new airliners to operators in this zone. Airbus is heavily investing in Indonesian refurbishment centres and cabin conversion operations.

This level of investment is truly staggering in its size and implications for mass transit. It also illustrates the shocking contrast in standards between the established manufacturers and operators’ commitment and the seemingly casual incompetence of Malaysian airport security.

Malaysian Airlines operates more than 100 modern jets and flies to over 80 worldwide destinations each day. It has a good safety record.